Clue 1: With the pixel density of the the 7D, only the top Lglass lenses are able to outresolve the sensor.Clue 2: Canon has recently been upgrading it's high end lenses to outresolve said density.Clue 3: Canon has said that the new 7D will be significantly above the current one.Clue 4: Canon has said that more high end lenses will be released before the big megapixel camera.

What this sounds like, at least to me, is that the people at canon realize that a camera is a system... not just a sensor. That they realize that a high megapixel camera will be useless without the appropriate lenses to take advantage of it.... That this has been in the planning for a long time....

Thinks do not progress smoothly... there are leaps ahead and there are stumbles. Sometimes one stumbles before leaping. Sometimes one tests the waters with one's toe before they jump into the bathtub..... I think that the new 7D will be that test... newer technology, perhaps different user interface, who knows? Hopefully it works well and is received well, and lessons learned get applied to a string of updated FF camera models..

Clue 5: The 5DIII may get updated sooner than expected.

I am looking forward to see what happens.... it should be interesting.

I'm looking forward to it, and will certainly buy one. Canon does a careful job of maintaining its product line and leaking out features, so in another year we'll have another round of features and high MP to boot. What's not to like?

I hope its in a 1D body too, I've always wanted one of those. Given its targeted at the Studio/Fashion/Landscape shooters it makes sense.

Does not make sense at all. I am a landscape and studio photographer, and I want the high MP body to be 5D-sized. If I could have it 100% my way, the high MP body would be rebel sized, but well built and weather sealed.

When I am out and about, I want my gear to be as light and portable as possible, especially when I'm hiking for some landscape photos. When / if I want the extra size, I can easily add a battery grip.

I had the 1DS before, and I swear it was my first and last camera of that size. :p

Replacing the 5D3 faster seems logical. The mirrorless are developing on full speed and this is where a lot of R&D is going. Just being big (the camera) will not cut anymore, there has to be a reason behind. The biggest showstopper for mirrorless is AF, but it seems to be the area of attention - the phase detection on the sensor is another step towards equalizing. What is left for bigger cameras? More light thus better sensitivity. However, as said more R&D goes to advancing smaller sensors. Rapid product cycles give advantages - as soon as new tech is available it shows up - rather than by waiting things to accumulate, while others may be already using it.

I think it will be high frame rate because high frame rate is what Canon does better than anyone else.

Not disputing that Canon does well with high framerate, but there are plenty of examples of Canon successes that have not been focused on speed. 5Dmk2 being one example. If anything, recent history seems to suggest that Canon should prioritize video functionality instead of still images, and one could argue that is exactly what they are doing :-(

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I see no reason why that technology could not be applied to a "measly" 30-40mp FF sensor to achieve at least 6-8fps. I also see no reason why ISO range would have to suffer. High ISO capabilities are not mutually exclusive with low ISO capabilities. On the contrary, high ISO is limited by physics, while low ISO is limited by electronic noise sources. Canons maximum well capacity is already more than high enough to fully exploit 14 bit data, as well as fully exploit 16 bit data...the only thing in the way is their high read noise. That could be solved with a parallel digital readout approach that applies digital noise reduction similar to Sony. If Canon solves the noise problem, they could easily have both quality high and quality low ISO performance.

I think that the pixelrate (sensor resolution times framerate) has some relevance to cameras. Internal bandwidth scales with pixelrate. Image processing dsp scales with pixelrate. Total camera heat output / battery drain probably scales pretty well with pixel rate.

It has been said that the differences in quality between my 7D and the 60D could be connected to the 7Ds higher framerate. Doubling the bandwidth of an ADC have a cost. You might argue that highly parallell ADC designs avoids excessive bandwidth demands, but doubling the framerate would still double the bandwidth of each ADC, evrything else being equal.

While your theory may be right, I think it is accurate to claim that recent high-quality DSLRs tend to be either top-performers at low ISO or at high ISO, never both. Who knows if this is a technical thing or a marketing thing.

-h

You make some very good points, and I generally agree. I think one thing you may be leaving out is the advancements in Analog to Digital Conversion over the last four years or so. It is indeed true that as ADC frequency increases, so to does it's contribution to noise. However, the current approach to ADC taken by all manufacturers except Sony is to parallelize buckets, rather than each individual row or column, and process each of those buckets by separate "global" ADCs. Additionally, readout is usually performed on-die in a parallel fashion, however it still is not row or column parallel...usually it is a bucket of columns. Both of those are prime causes for the introduction of banding noise.

Canon currently uses an eight channel per DIGIC 5+ chip approach to ADC. There are two issues with that. First, there are only 8 channels total in most cameras, or 16 channels in the 1D X. That is significantly lower than the 5000+ channels you would have with a true column-parallel ADC approach. Additionally, the ADCs are off die, beyond a bus, on separate chips. That has the consequence of requiring a high speed bus as well as ADCs that operate at a significantly higher frequency than would be required for true CP-ADC. If you put the ADC on-die, you eliminate the bus and the need for high frequency ADCs. You still need a bus for transferring the digital signal out of the sensor, but at that point it is digital, so the signal would not be susceptible to additional noise due to the electronics.

So, yes, a higher frame rate can indeed exacerbate problems with noise. I would agree that the difference between the 7D and the 60D is partly due to the higher frame rate. However, Canon does have a number of patents for parallel readout and image processing on the image sensor die. I am 100% certain they have a form of block bucket readout, which divides the sensor into two dimensional blocks for parallel readout. They also seem to have a form of column-parallel analog readout and amplification with power disconnect, which is apparently capable of nearly eliminating electronic noise that is normally introduced during amplification and read. According to the press releases that announced the 120mp APS-H prototype, they also have on-die image processing. I have not found any patents that seem to describe what that is in detail, but it sounds suspiciously similar to Sony's CP-ADC with Digittal CDS (which is the primary reason Exmor is such a low read noise sensor.)

If we apply current generation technology to the 7D, I it should be more than possible to achieve a high frame rate readout with significantly lower read noise. I cannot say if it could be as low as Exmor (Sony did themselves good with the design of that sensor), but with hyperparallel low frequency on-die ADC and on-die image processing (i.e. noise reduction a la Sony Digital CDS), next-gen Canon sensors could perform at a high frame rate, offer good low ISO performance (maybe not quite as good as Exmor, but certainly a hell of a lot better than any current Canon sensor), good high ISO performance (they already solved that problem, and read noise doesn't play a significant role above around ISO 800), with higher density, higher megapixel designs.

Clue 1: With the pixel density of the the 7D, only the top Lglass lenses are able to outresolve the sensor.Clue 2: Canon has recently been upgrading it's high end lenses to outresolve said density.... That they realize that a high megapixel camera will be useless without the appropriate lenses to take advantage of it.... That this has been in the planning for a long time....

I'm not sure I understand this comment about needing better lenses for the high MP FF.As you've correctly pointed out, the 40 MP FF would have about the same pixel density as the current 7D (which I have) and I haven't seen any reason to think that there is a problem with the "old" line of lenses and the 7D. My 500 f4L IS USM (no II) is just fine with the 7D.If its a good lens, its a good lens. If its a bad lens, be it poor resolution or barrel distortion, it will show up the same unless you're printing larger, won't it?

See my visual examples of the difference between good glass (EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS) vs. excellent glass (EF 500mm f/4 L II IS + 1.4x TC) in the quote below of one of my previous posts on another thread. There are significant differences between good glass and excellent glass when the 7D (or for that matter any one of Canon's 18mp cameras) are involved.

To put some images behind my claims. Below are two photos of House Finches. One is the normal red morph, the other an orange morph. Same bird, otherwise, same size (maybe a slight size benefit to the orange morph) with the same amount of base detail...feathers, beak, eye. Both of these were shot at pretty much the same distance (around 7 feet...red morph maybe a few inches farther), ISO, and aperture, although the red one was up in a tree so my focal plane was shifted a bit, thus slightly blurring the top of its head and the back of its right wing. The body feathers and beaks are in focus on both birds. Both birds were positioned within the same rough area of the lens...slightly off center towards the upper left corner. Both full-scene images below are cropped to roughly the same area (few pixels difference in width and height).

Both photos shot with my 7D, ISO 400, f/6.3, in my backyard. The red morph was shot with my EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS lens with a full stop of additional light at twice the shutter speed (1/1600s, which should be an IQ advantage!) The orange morph was shot with a rented EF 500mm f/4 L IS II. Both lenses had AFMA adjustments for this body.

Here are the full images, scaled down to 900 pixels. Even at this level, you can see the difference in quality between the two photos can be seen. The orange morph is sharper and clearer (probably thanks to better microcontrast.)

At 100% crop (1:1 zoom, PIXEL PEEPING for all you pixel peepers!), the difference in IQ is beyond clear. The 100-400mm lens produces far softer results (even ignoring the slightly out of focus crest on the red morph). This kind of softness is what I've come to expect from the 100-400mm lens at less than f/8, and beyond f/8 diffraction again softens the image. (There is roughly the same amount of noise in both photos. It is more apparent in the red morph due to the increased lens softness, which blurs detail but does NOT blur noise. Clear, sharp detail tends to trump noise. The background in the red morph also provides a greater area of <= 18% gray tone, where noise becomes most apparent...the orange morph has a greater area of pixels > 18% tone.)

Scaled down to web size, the red morph photo is good enough. Most people won't notice the slight softness. From a print standpoint, I probably would not print the red morph photo, however the orange morph photo is definitely printable. It is not only printable, it could also easily be blown up two, maybe three times larger, and still be high quality, even higher quality than the red morph photo printed at original size!

canon rumors FORUM

I think the other thing they're probably concerned about updating are the corners. Remember, the 7d's crop sensor only captures the center of the image delivered by a FF lens. The FF corners (especially of the current UWA lineup) are much harder to get right, and this will be more noticeable with this pixel density on FF. Hence all the rumors about a new 14-24...

I think it will be high frame rate because high frame rate is what Canon does better than anyone else. I have also been poring over Canon patents for the last month, and they seem to have quite a number of parallel readout and parallel pixel processing patents for high speed readout of high megapixel count sensors. Canon has also prototyped a 120mp sensor with a 9.5fps readout rate using some combination of block and row/column parallel readout and on-die image processing.

I see no reason why that technology could not be applied to a "measly" 30-40mp FF sensor to achieve at least 6-8fps. I also see no reason why ISO range would have to suffer. High ISO capabilities are not mutually exclusive with low ISO capabilities. On the contrary, high ISO is limited by physics, while low ISO is limited by electronic noise sources. Canons maximum well capacity is already more than high enough to fully exploit 14 bit data, as well as fully exploit 16 bit data...the only thing in the way is their high read noise. That could be solved with a parallel digital readout approach that applies digital noise reduction similar to Sony. If Canon solves the noise problem, they could easily have both quality high and quality low ISO performance.

Doubt it. Actually 5d3's data throughput is lower than d800's or 7d's and on par with d600's. 6D's is on par with the rebels!Oh Canon surely can do FPS better than anyone..., but its reserved for the top dog only as is a bunch of other features.

Don't understand all the tech. But the current process seems promising. Will an updated 5D body (next cycle? 5DX?) provide the same high ISO IQ as my 5D3 does by now or will it be even improved although the MP count will be much higher? So, is Canon drifting away from its' 20-22 MP scheme due to much more improved senor tech? I for myself would like them to stay at these MP levels...Or will a 36+ MP sensor yield the same results as a current 22MP sensor? If they don't remain within this MP count, could the 6D type bodies possibly take the 20 MP sensor niche held by the 5Ds? Anyone? Cheers, Pedro

A faster update? One suggestion from a known source is that Canon has loose plans to replace and/or update the EOS 5D Mark III quicker than the previous iterations.

Speculation: The 7DII will have newer sensor technology. The 6D has lower read noise than the 5DIII and the 1Dx has lower read noise than the 6D. If the 7DII is even better, then the 5DIII will be looking very dated compared to the rest of the lineup in this area. So they might want to put out a 5DIIIn or something with just a sensor update.

I think it will be high frame rate because high frame rate is what Canon does better than anyone else. I have also been poring over Canon patents for the last month, and they seem to have quite a number of parallel readout and parallel pixel processing patents for high speed readout of high megapixel count sensors. Canon has also prototyped a 120mp sensor with a 9.5fps readout rate using some combination of block and row/column parallel readout and on-die image processing.

I see no reason why that technology could not be applied to a "measly" 30-40mp FF sensor to achieve at least 6-8fps. I also see no reason why ISO range would have to suffer. High ISO capabilities are not mutually exclusive with low ISO capabilities. On the contrary, high ISO is limited by physics, while low ISO is limited by electronic noise sources. Canons maximum well capacity is already more than high enough to fully exploit 14 bit data, as well as fully exploit 16 bit data...the only thing in the way is their high read noise. That could be solved with a parallel digital readout approach that applies digital noise reduction similar to Sony. If Canon solves the noise problem, they could easily have both quality high and quality low ISO performance.

Doubt it. Actually 5d3's data throughput is lower than d800's or 7d's and on par with d600's. 6D's is on par with the rebels!Oh Canon surely can do FPS better than anyone..., but its reserved for the top dog only as is a bunch of other features.

Well, I am not saying they would let the 7D II pound out 30fps. I figure it will be in the 8-10fps range at 24-25mp range. My hope is that it will be 8-10fps with better IQ at both low and high ISO...but that is just my hope. The 1D X definitely has better noise characteristics compared to the others, and it does not seem to exhibit the oscillating +/- 1/3rd stop ISO quirk (which is a big improvement IMO). It does, however, still have the low ISO DR issue, and while its noise characteristics are better than the rest, it does still have over 38 electrons worth of read noise at low ISO settings, which is actually higher than the 5D III.

(I am not sure why it works that way, but whatever the core, common, fundamental design factors of Canon's 500nm process are, it causes a non-linear read noise issue in all of their sensors (basically, read noise climbs from a floor around two electrons worth at high ISO to between 10 to 40 electrons worth at low ISO. Sony Exmor sensors effectively have a flat, linear noise curve. I'm hoping a move to 180nm process will allow Canon to solve those issues.)

24mp x 10fps would require 1dx's pipeline so its highly unlikely, even 24x8 would be kinda farfetched but it might be forced if the competition steps up. That would drive the whole APS pro category to 2K pricerange across the brands and the signs sofar from both camps point to a more conservative generation, i guess we'll see..